“Those are yours for the night. Try them on,” he said.

I did. It felt cool wearing fingerless gloves like the fighters did on TV.

“All right, big guy,” he said. I hated being called that. “When I say left, punch left, when I say right, punch right.”

“Okay,” I replied. I began to get nervous.

“Left!”

I punched left.

“Right!”

I punched right.

We did that for about ten minutes, and I realized that I was really starting to sweat.

“All right,” Ryan called out. “Now let’s throw some kicks.”

I didn’t know how to throw kicks, so I did my best.

“Left kick!” he yelled.

I kicked awkwardly to the left.

“Right kick!” he yelled before my foot came back down.

I kicked right as quickly as I could.

My kicks were pretty awful. I wasn’t kicking like the people on TV, I was just lifting my legs toward the pads
really fast, but it was actually pretty fun. I didn’t want to stop. We continued this for about fifteen more minutes until I visibly slowed down, then Ryan lowered the pads.

“All right,” he said. “I think that’s enough for today.”

I was covered in sweat and out of breath from the workout. I couldn’t have kept going even if I wanted to.

“So, did you enjoy it?” he asked as we walked toward his desk.

“I loved it. It was a lot of fun,” I replied, trying to hide my smile. I didn’t want to look too keen, especially on my first night.

“Would you be interested in signing up for a month of classes?”

“Yes,” I said with no hesitation. It was at that moment I knew I wanted to be there, even though I should have thought about it more first.

“Cool,” he replied. “It’s forty dollars a month. We have classes three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We’re open most of the day for hitting mats and such, but starting this week, classes that focus on technique begin at seven in the evening. Do you have any specific goals here?”

“Yeah,” I told him. “I’m actually here to lose weight.” I was a bit nervous putting those cards on the table. Telling someone that you’re trying to lose weight is basically acknowledging the elephant in the room. I was fat, I knew I was fat, and I was embarrassed about it.

“We’ll make it happen,” Ryan said confidently.

That made me smile.

“This is the new guy you told me about?” a voice asked from behind me. I turned around, startled, and saw a taller black woman who was a few years younger than Ryan with long, natural hair wearing the King’s Kickboxing uniform.

“Yep. This would be him,” Ryan said. “Adrian, meet Scarlett. For newcomers, we like to pair them up with folks who have been here for some time. Scarlett has been here for about three years.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s almost like all of high school.”

“Yeah. Linear time, right?” Scarlett smiled at me. “I guess we’re partners, big guy.”